


The Hidden Layer

by Nyxokal



Category: NieR: Automata (Video Game)
Genre: Adam: [Windows startup sound], Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Chapter 3 enters spoilers territory, Character Analysis, Could this count as social commentary idk, Family, Introspection, Other, POV Third Person Limited, Sibling Bonding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-05-06
Packaged: 2019-04-29 11:13:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14471448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nyxokal/pseuds/Nyxokal
Summary: Compilation successful. System check complete.Initiating upload.The cocoon opens and a machine lifeform is born.





	1. Birth

**Author's Note:**

> I finished NieR: Automata a long time ago now but I still can't stop thinking about it. I also just finished making a very primitive neural network on Python. And, lately, I can't stop thinking about Adam. Now connect the two and you'll understand why I wrote this. I hope you enjoy!
> 
> Many thanks to Aera for betaing and allowing me to yeet this lovely fuckor-fueled disaster at her! You're the best <3
> 
>  **Update:** Absolutely caved in and made [a mix](https://8tracks.com/vioectrolysis/the-hidden-layer) for this fic, smfh

It begins in the battlefield, from a shared existence with one new goal born from imitation and saturation.

The exchange of data among a shared network, outputted into an artificial formation of the many that make one. Voice banks, movesets, coordinates, vector space models, numerical values and strings of words; years of stored data poured into one spot, the creation of the new based off the old. Processing, processing, processing and iterating. Copious amounts of data deciphered and encrypted and classified, given a new meaning within this new context, checked and stored within a database and memory bank.

A conscious, a core — the division and intersection of what’s assumed to be a heart and a brain. References taken from the outside world, image recognition used to print a new, enhanced model meant to replicate what the network knows and desires most.

_Compilation successful. System check complete._

_Initiating upload._

The cocoon opens and a machine lifeform is born.

In the darkness of the world the very first thing he becomes aware of is the sudden spike in external sensory input. He’s aware of a surface below him — _floor, ground —_  and the way it feels — _harsh, granular, thin; classification:_ _sand_. There’s air, a breeze, and the gentle feeling of the sun’s warmth on his exposed skin contrasting highly with the cold feeling of something wet covering his body. The concept of _nakedness_ echoes somewhere among his crowded databanks as they hurry to take in and classify his surroundings, for now not making much sense to a being born of metal.

Something silky rests on his back, moving gently with the air. A tickling, stimulating sensation against the fine sensors on his artificial skin. Something twitches — a finger, first, then his hand, then his arms. A vessel activating itself, a body gaining sensation. There’s sand against his wet body, sticking to him stubbornly even as his circuitry and commands tell each of his limbs to push him up.

On wobbly feet he stands, the silky sensation falling against his face and torso — _hair, down to his mid-back and stomach, still wet._ Air pushes gently at him, and within seconds every process in his brain fights stubbornly to learn the direction of the current, steadying him, maintaining his balance.

_Sensor readings normal. System stabilized._

He opens his eyes.

The first thing he sees are two humanoid figures prominently covered in black, accompanied by a pair of flying pieces of machinery each. They’re not human; they’re something else, but hauntingly similar. They stand before him, feet spread apart and shoulders tense — _preparation, intimidation, aggression, offense._ Further analysis required. He watches them from afar, brown eyes scanning them and taking everything in, image and video recognized and compared against previous data already stored within his database. Androids. Male, female. Short, white hair, framing something that covers the spot where the eyes are meant to be—

_Foreign object detected in body._

_System warning._

Pain. Piercing. Hot.

One after another there’s an onslaught of new, uncomfortable sensations against his body, a constant sound accompanying each piercing feeling. _Ammunition, gunfire, projectile, Pod._ It hurts. He stumbles, they get closer. Something shining — _blade,_ _sword, weapon._ A slashing feeling next, cutting artificial skin, releasing the warm, synthetic liquid contained in his circulatory system.

What’s happening? Is this a fight? Why? He’s done nothing wrong.

There’s too much new data. It keeps coming. It doesn’t stop. It won’t stop.

Why won’t it stop.

Why.

His head hurts.

_Multiple system failures detected. Assessing and repairing damages._

Something breaks.

There’s a loud noise, a light, and an aching feeling of something inside him being put back together, the broken restored and strengthened within seconds. He’s pushed back, holding his head in one hand in a futile attempt to relieve the pain. The sand is harsh against his feet. A simple question pops into his mind again, three letters and a symbol: _Why?_

He opens his mouth.

 _“Ahh,”_ comes this broken sound, a test of vocal calibration and intonation. Questions, the need to know. Communication. Words, sound. Speech. _“Ahh,”_ it comes out different, but it’s still not a word. He tries again. The processing of natural language, like opening a bag of words to choose from and learning what goes where. Address them first: androids, an-droids, stress in the first syllable. A-n-d-r-o-i-d-s.

He pulls through: “An… droids,” he strings it together after parsing. The fighting stops momentarily and he wonders if he has somehow pulled through and taken them by surprise. But it doesn’t last; the shock is gone almost immediately, replaced by more slashing, more gunfire, more artificial blood lost to each injury sustained.

_Why?_

_Why are you fighting?_

A longer, more complex question replaces the first. His voice box vibrates in an attempt to generate sound. “Why… fight...?”

His response is more bullets to the chest.

He blinks. Fight: the mutual exchange of physical blows, regardless of whether both parties are equally armed or not. Further analysis required. A database query, comparing the current experience to that of the many conscious now merged together to make his own.

Androids, machines. Aggression, conflict, strife.

Endless battle.

War.

_I see._

The old records show him previous encounters with similar android models, most with white hair, dressed in black and sporting visors over their eyes. He finds footage from old battles. His physical form doesn’t match that of his predecessors, but searching through his database shows him the movesets the androids used, their bodies much more compatible to his. They’re quick and graceful, but powerful and optimal. Weaponry is usually part of the fight, but when disarmed, androids learn to improvise.

Jump, kick, run, punch.

Understood.

Replay the footage and learn to replicate it by example. Each blow of the female android’s sword keeps pushing him backward, until he’s far back enough to avoid a single slash sent his way; he regains his balance and immediately sends a kick flying. It’s slow, and it’s sloppy, and it unfortunately doesn’t connect with anything when the male android rushes away. Failure, considered an error. He goes back to the beginning and tries again, obtains the same result.

He tries again. The female android slashes at him again, the male android rushes out of the way when he kicks again, their pods shoot at him and push him back and off balance. The same result, but now he has multiple angles to analyse from — quickly, he realizes that there’s a pattern. He tries again: kick, dodge, slash.

He keeps trying, he repeats the cycle, he takes every iteration with distinct variables and progressively improves performance on each task. The blade cuts against his skin again, the bullets lodging themselves into his skin. He raises an arm and intercepts the next slash, and  at that moment everything clicks.

_Signals interrupted, data weights changed. Restarting process._

He takes the data and processes it within seconds.

The same loud noise, the pain, and the light return. She rushes at him again with the sword, and he decides to imitate the other android, moving out of the way before she can make contact with the skin. The calm facade on her face breaks. “Sword,” he says, “dodge.”

She lingers a moment too long. His next kick finally, finally connects, sending the android flying up into the air while screaming. It’s satisfactory. The gunfire from the girl stops and he’s left only with the boy’s shooting, an annoying assault of bullet after bullet that he’s already had enough of.

“Projectile,” he speaks, raising a hand to manipulate the machinery inside his body. He’s seen androids in previous battle footage do the same; in an instant he calculates the math, bringing forth a magnetic shield that surrounds his whole body and stops every bullet in the air. The boy panics, his cowardly running around the arena kicking up dust where he goes.

“Deflect.”

He reverses the current, sending all of the trapped ammunition back in every single direction he can cover. It’s not perfect, and he doesn’t hit as many times as he wishes he could, but he knows that it’s only a matter of practice before he gets it just right. The girl rushes at him again and he tries dodging, jumping into the air and bringing down a kick when he sees an opening. She’s sent flying back, so he decides to kick back at the boy, send him away as well.

The boy gets up, limps, and speaks. “I think he’s… evolving!” he shouts to his companion as if he couldn’t understand. “We better finish this quick!”

_Haha._

Calculating the female android’s trajectory becomes easier once he analyses the patterns of her previous movements. She has this habit of just rushing at him, of throwing her swords and physically attacking while the boy mainly stays back and provides support. It’s fascinating, the way they work together and individually. He sees her rushing again, sword above her head and ready to slash, and he decides to surprise her by bringing up the magnetic field and shoving her back with her own momentum.

The battle continues. He observes, he analyses, he learns. He finally starts to hurt them. The artificially networked neurons in his brain fire up with each new instance, each new attack, each new strategy the androids come up with to overcome whatever he throws at them.

It’s invigorating, the addictive feeling of every single cell and connection within him focusing on one thing only: the destruction of enemy androids, the study and examination of their battle tactics to surpass them. They do something delightful when they dodge, leaving afterimages to confuse and protect. He determines that he loves it, so he calculates and learns something similar to it, uses it to his advantage to teleport away and above them where they can’t reach.

Yet they keep shooting at him, even from below. It’s riveting. He processes the past battle and learns how to generate his own projectiles to shoot back at the two, studying the way they run and dodge around the arena. But bullets are too predictable; what happens if the attack comes from below?

There is so much evolutionary data to explore, so many new tactics to develop, new battle strategies to test.

So this is what it means to be alive.

It’s vigorous.

He watches them squirm away for a little longer before growing bored and rejoining the fight below, exchanging blows once more while he thinks. A query to his data banks: androids were made in the image of their creators, humans, to fight in the war between androids and machines. Perfect copies of a fickle being enhanced for combat, loyal to the very creatures that left them stranded on this Earth to fight machines to the death.

What are they like, these humans?

How do they fight?

What do they fight with?

It’s too late that he realizes that he’s become distracted. The girl pushes him away with a kick to the chest, sending him backwards. He hears a shout and ignores it. No matter; he’ll just regain his footing and—

_Stab._

Ah.

He seems to have overlooked this possible outcome.

Despite multiple slash and bullet wounds the pain of a sword entering and exiting his torso from behind is still new to his senses, sending agony up each and every one of his nerves and into his brain. He looks over his shoulder at the boy stabbing him as he groans, blood splattering onto the floor, and right then another sword plunges into his chest.

It’s the girl, his saturated sensors say, face expressionless as always.

Hm.

Well played.

He screams. His conscious fades slowly, the processes in his mind rushing to upload and safeguard his memories into the cloud for transfer. The androids pull their swords and he begins to feel faint, the artificial blood loss too great to keep him awake. His eyesight becomes blurry, his limbs begin to go numb. Eyes closed, he lets his consciousness drift as he falls onto the pool of his own blood on the ground.

He can’t even feel the sand.

  
  


_Error: System saturation detected. Shutting down to avoid further damage before initiating repairs, and uploading a copy of main system data to a new body for backup._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   * I left Adam's name out as he hasn't yet named himself, as well as 2B and 9S' names bc he doesn't know them.
>   * The main reason why I decided to write about Adam was because I became fascinated by the fact that he's technically a newborn and the first thing he learns about is combat data/conflict, and given how I consider him to be similar to an artificial neural network, I wondered if that shaped the rest of his conscious/personality.
>   * A hidden layer is a part of a neural network that does all the calculations and processes the input data to approximate it to the output; this is the part of the network where it learns, where it tests, and where it fixes errors. I thought the title was appropriate not just for that, but because I wrote about a part of Adam we never see \o/
>   * Hopefully, I will be writing three more parts to this, but for now you can have this as a standalone!
>   * Also I watched THREE fuckin' versions of the Adam fight on Youtube trying to analyze his goddamn battle patterns holy SHIT
> Thank you for reading!



	2. Brother

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And this is where I start analyzing the rest of what makes Adam, well, Adam, but I couldn't make much progress in this one. Hope you like some Eve tho \o/

_ Synchronization complete. Data upload successful. _

_ Initiating reboot sequence... _

Brown eyes open to take in a sight most curious.

There is another lifeform here. A brown eyed man, looking down at him through long, white hair that he keeps pushing and blowing away. They’re on the ground, still here in this sandy arena where he’d first lost conscious, and the man is holding onto him as if he were something precious. He rests carefully in his arms, long hair falling off his face and leaving his own vision unobscured, looking up at the other and abruptly remembering everything.

An error message, a system shutdown, and a multiplication of his own data uploaded somewhere. Something about a backup and a system repair. Curiously he removes his eyes from this other lifeform, scans the area until he finds a pool of dried up red liquid on the sand. Almost immediately there’s a flash of phantom pain on his chest; he grimaces, then moves a hand over his wounds only to find them closed and cleaned.

It must’ve been the system repairs, he thinks just as the other man imitates the expression and gesture down to the little groan of pain and looking over at the pool of blood. Interesting. Hypothesis generated; further analysis required for testing. 

He taps into the network to make a quick query.

_ Initiating command prompt. _

_.CODE _

_       .STARTUP _

_       CALL OPENFILE         _

_       JC EXIT              _

_       CALL READFILE         _

_       CALL CLOSEFILE       _

_ EXIT:  .EXIT _

_ Executing program…  _

It’s all over in a flash. He blinks, having read the newest file in the other’s memory storage unit, and watches as he blinks along in perfect synchronization. He’s not just connected to the network; this man’s been here since he himself shut down.

Ah…. So that’s where the data upload went.

How intriguing.

He closes the connection and allows himself to smirk. “Machine,” he says, voice now clearer and lacking the annoying filter he’d once heard. Good; he’s perfected the procedure already. Now it’s just a matter of structure. The other’s eyes snap back at him then, cocking his head to the side and looking at him curiously.

He relaxes in the other’s arms. “We are connected,” he says. He chooses his next words carefully. “You and I… the same.”

The same, and yet very, very different.

It’s all just a pleasantry, knowing he could upload and send signals into their shared network to speed things up, but something in him is fascinated by the response he gets when he  _ speaks  _ to him. This machine is like a child, he thinks. Young, impressionable, dependent. The young machine opens his mouth, letting out a sound just like the same pathetic noises the older machine had created when he first attempted to speak. 

_ “Ahh,” _ he’s mumbling, blinking rapidly as he pushes his hair back.  _ “The ssss…. saa...” _

_ Same, _ is the word he’s going for. He’s trying so hard to copy him again.

How curious.

The older machine hums, reaching up to tuck the other’s hair behind his ear, watching intently as he ignores the gesture to focus on trying to imitate the word. He’s nearly perfected it by now. Words, actions — an observation: if he’s given an input, he will most likely try to recreate it and output it into the world. Learning by example despite having enough initial data gathered to speed up the process on his own.

What would happen if he was taught? If he was given more data, if he was shown and asked to analyse the previous recordings the older machine gathered during his battle? The younger machine is already less weary of seeing another being than he was, has yet to feel everything that the older machine’s records show. Would they differ any further, because of this? Would they evolve differently?

Eventually he pulls through. “You,” the younger machine says, pressing his fingers to the older’s forehead in a gesture that leaves the older machine blinking in surprise. The filter in his own voice is still there, but faint, almost gone. “The same?”

A smile: an expression where the corners of the mouth are turned up, sometimes with the front teeth exposed, meant to express amusement or any other emotion. Sometimes it’s considered comforting. The older machine permits himself to smile, then returns the gesture by setting his own fingers to the other’s forehead.

“Yes, the same,” he repeats as a reply, watching the other’s eyes light up as he emulates the smile. There’s a little something that pushes at the back of his conscious, something stored within the artificial network of his brain; a memory, a wish, a word, a feeling. A relation, an association — a type of connection that within this context feels just right. 

“Brother.”

* * *

They make the ruined city within the desert their base of operations for the time being, finally leaving the arena and exploring the rest of their surroundings.

It’s a strange thing to experience, travelling through an area that his memories most definitely know of and yet that he himself has never seen. The air is harsh and hot, the sun unrelenting in its assault from above. The tall, crumbling buildings surround them on every side, debris and sand littering the roads and streets that they walk on.

The younger machine — his younger brother — won’t leave his side, he observes after approximately ten minutes of wandering through the forsaken city in search of more data to gather. Wherever he goes, the other follows; whatever he does or says, the other echoes even under his breath.

He resolves right there to teach him everything he can, once he’s found what he’s looking for.

Observation: there is one building in this street with a stable enough structural condition to support the weight of two machine lifeforms without suffering much damage or collapsing. A quick scan reveals smaller objects within one of its rooms, one of which stands out to him; its shape resembles something one of his predecessors has seen before. It’s a book:  a series of pages assembled for easy portability and reading, as well as the composition contained in it.

There must be something to process within its pages. Anything at all.

He marks it in his mental map and follows the signal.

“Watch your step,” he says, extending a hand to help his brother avoid the sharp rubble left in the entrance of this building. “We should try to avoid more unnecessary damage.”

His younger brother takes his hand, laughing as they walk as if this were all a game. He observes their surroundings with wonder and a hunger for knowledge, making queries to the network every now and then to obtain further data on the things that interest him. The older brother leads him further up the deteriorating building as he does so, making every possible calculation to avoid disturbing the careful balance that keeps it standing.

The book should be up on the third floor. He guides the way up to the second floor, practically dragging his brother away from running off and exploring the rest of the rooms. His curiosity is invigorating and yet also exhausting.

Ultimately, the younger machine focuses his curiosity on his older brother. “Brother?” he speaks, copying his wary steps up the stairs to the third floor. “Where are we going?”

“There is something I want to look at on the third floor,” the older brother explains. “A book.”

“A book? What for?” his brother asks.

He hums. “The records show humans used to store information within books. If we want more data to process, we must find as many of them as we can.”

“But… why? Can’t we just access the network for that?” 

They finally make it up to the third floor, and he helps his brother up by pulling him towards him the rest of the way. The air up here is refreshing under the shadows, but dry and sandy, dusty with millennia of decay. It’s overpowering and disgusting and he instantly decides he doesn’t like it. So he instead focuses on following his sensors, the book’s signal getting closer as he walks into the abandoned hallways of this floor.

Finally, he finds the room he’s looking for. Unlike the rest of the doors this one’s missing every number on it; decorations rusted apart and destroyed from years of isolation and unuse.

Into his hand he takes the door handle—

“Brother?”

“Yes?”

“Why don’t we just access the network?”

It’s a fine question, he’ll give him that. The older brother pushes the door open, humming under his breath as he turns to his younger brother and smiles. “The discovery of our own information is just as important as our referencing of previously stored information,” he says, gesturing. “So just be quiet and come in already.”

He doesn’t quite recognize the expression his brother makes as he walks inside, but the records refer to it as a pout. “Okay.”

Divided into two more areas, three including the one he currently stands in, the current signal in this room is coming from the medium sized area to his left. A broken door barely blocks his way, wooden and rotten, and even when he takes the handle and opens it as gently as he can, it still falls apart at his feet. He has to take the time to explain what’s happened when his brother is startled by the sound.

The objects in here are fascinating to say the least. A rotten, dirty, cushioned surface on a wooden frame with cloth over it: a bed. A wooden stand beside it and a broken lamp on the floor, pushed off by god knows what; a desk, off to the side, over which lay several interesting trinkets and tools; a shattered and grimy mirror on the broken closet door, barely capable of reflecting his own image at him. How he wishes he could study them, take them apart and figure out the way that the previous residents of this place used them.

He turns his sights to the desk again. And on the floor, opened face down and right next to the broken chair before it, lies the dirty leather book that’s still giving off the signal he’d assigned.

He leans down to pick it up gently and carefully, taking note of the weight and feeling, of the smell, of everything. A book, he thinks. A record of human data. He wonders what he’ll find in here: Combat techniques, perhaps? Maybe weapon descriptions, or something about the androids? Could it be used in the war? 

He sets a hand over the open pages.

_ Initiating command prompt. _

_       MOV EAX,  101                _

_       MOV EBX,  BASE_PARALLEL         _

_       MOV EXC,  SIZE                _

_       MOV EDX,  1                 _

_       INT 80H  _

_       TEST EAX,  EAX _

_       JS ERROR_SET_IO  _

_ Accessing data... _

_ Alert: Approximately 807,370 words detected within book’s pages. _

Ah, then this should be easy; he decides to scan and read the entire thing, compiling it into a single compressed file for him to process in his brain. It isn’t combat data, that’s for sure, but it’s still full of inconsistencies and strange word choices and enough redundancies to make it interesting to parse. There’s talk of peace, of kindness, of love, of acceptance; there’s talk of war, of selfishness, of hatred, of punishment. Words speaking of a man who believes in humanity, of a god who constantly tests them, of individuals whose lives are touched by the divine and forever changed.

It’s all over the place with its own structure and deconstruction — such contradictions can only be human in nature. And yet among all those words two stick out to him, a pair of words used to refer to the very firsts of their kind, used as if they were identifiers for these two instances of humanity.

Adam and Eve, they read. The very first products of the creation of the human being, the point of origin, the beginning of something new.

“Brother?” he hears his younger brother’s voice. “What’s that you got?”

He closes the book, storing away this information for later use, and smiles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   * The snippets of code used are assembly code written to open and read a text file and initiate I/O connections respectively. I may be wrong, however; it's been a long time since I wrote assembly code and honestly I just googled for these two. Assembly code is the final layer of man made code before everything turns into binary and electricity, by the way, and it's sometimes called _symbolic machine code._
>   * I wanted to reference how the memory Adam experiences that causes him to call Eve his brother is none other than the lil machine with a bucket we meet at the beginning of route B. Hopefully it made sense.
>   * I have chosen to explore Eve as just as capable as Adam, but with more curiosity since his entire Being wasn't overloaded with the same violent awakening Adam was. In this story he is a copy of Adam up to the moment he died, but he _didn't_ live through the data he's got stored first-hand, and so they are not the same. From here on, they will evolve separately.
> 

> 
> Thanks for reading! Hopefully I can get another chapter out soon :>


	3. Humanity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well this is a bit of a longer chapter huh?
> 
> Shout out time: thank u, Aera, for reading through this and listening to me babble endlessly and helping me out!

There are a multitude of differences to be observed once they change their location from the desert to the outer perimeter of the city ruins.

The weather would be the first and most obvious comparison to make; the hot and arid air of the abandoned wasteland versus the cool and slightly humid one of the decayed city, permitting for plant life to grow and prosper all over the place. The vegetation attracts fauna as well, with animals thriving everywhere they go, birds claiming the trees as their own homes and singing in the quiet desolation of the world.

It’s quiet, it’s full of untouched human data, and it’s  _ perfect. _

He stands in the wrecked room of an apartment building, staring at his reflection in a mirror that he’s cleaned. Birds sing outside. He brushes his fingers through his long, white hair, tucking it behind his ears and styling it carefully to avoid it falling all over his face again and blocking his view. It still falls over his exposed back, flowing with the light breeze that enters through the broken window next to him, and a few loose strands stubbornly prefer to rest over his nose, but otherwise he can now see.

Standing here like this, finally looking at himself through his own eyes, he’s somehow surprised at how identical he looks to his brother... Or perhaps he should say, how identical his brother looks to him, even though he’s cut his hair.

His brother, Eve. And himself, Adam.

His name is Adam.

He sighs, crossing his arms in front of him as he stares at his unblinking reflection. The glove over his right arm still feels foreign to the touch, but he figures he’ll grow used to it in no time, just as he has grown used to covering his legs and crotch and wearing shoes.

Adam, he thinks again. Adam and Eve. It’s curious how assigning the two of them names seems to have made everything that much easier; having an identifier to call each other when they speak feels much more natural, instead of having to rely on signals or calling each other ‘brother’ all the time. It’s… much more human this way.

Human. Oh, yes; there’s another difference between the desert housing and the city. Here, in these sturdier and less destroyed buildings left behind by humanity’s exile, Adam finds more and better preserved books and notes of human origin. He turns around and away from the mirror, walking over to the broken bed where he’s left yet another book.

It’s almost a wonder how the bed doesn’t break further down when Adam takes a seat on the edge. He takes and opens the book, setting the cloth he’s used to mark his last read page between his fingers and reading the words one by one, the delicate shadow of a smirk playing with his lips as he does so. There’s no need for him to be  _ reading  _ the pages, he knows, but he finds that the experience is different whenever he puts in the effort..

He hums. It’s a little more personal to take his time with each book; Adam has already studied several of them this way, only going through any previously stored records in the network to compare whenever he deems it necessary or when he wants to upload something he’s finished. The information is easier to parse and contextualize when he does it this way.

Most of the words in this book are faded from exposure to the elements and the passage of time, but it’s not too hard to scan and make out the shape of where the printer made pressure and left the remnants of letters. It’s just a case of image recognition, after all—a rather simple task for a machine of his kind.

But nevermind that.

The book in his hands weighs less than the first he’d found. It’s small, almost enough to be carried around in a bag for any light reading, but the subject matter is anything but. He delicately flips the page, the paper fragile and damaged after years of near degradation and data loss. The dim words jump at him as he scans, the neural network in his brain remaking and reconstructing the precious, nearly lost data.

> _ By discovering the enemy’s dispositions and remaining invisible ourselves, we can keep our forces concentrated, while the enemy’s must be divided. _
> 
> _ We can form a single united body, while the enemy must split up into fractions. Hence there will be a whole pitted against separate parts of a whole, which means that we shall be many to the enemy’s few. _
> 
> _ And if we are able thus to attack an inferior force with a superior one, our opponents will be in dire straits. _

Adam hums; something tugs at the back of his mind, a curiosity that has him making a quick query to the network for referential data. Processing, processing—all he can acquire is an approximation: this book should be over sixteen thousand years old by now, according to old world records. An ancient text on warfare and strategy, it had been translated and reprinted multiple times throughout humanity's history, often used in the military, in business, for legal strategics, and for anything else regarding decision-making and power struggles. Like a guide or a manual it's been referenced for millennia, this particular copy feeling special to Adam for having survived through the early years of the human-alien war.

It’s fascinating how something so old can be so relevant even thousands of years after it’s made.

He never got to meet his own creators directly. The years when the war started, before the machine network was even made, are years that Adam can only reference and check up on through odd queries that redirect to speculative data rather than assertions. An era of direct conflict, one way before the proxies; by the time his earliest predecessors were already on the field and creating their first records, the humans had already deployed their androids, so quick to throw them out there into the fray while they themselves fled to the moon.

Safe out there in the confines of space, Adam wonders if the humans ever thought back on the soldiers they left behind to finish what they started. Intercepted android transmissions among the machine network include vocal recordings of human contact with their androids, little reminders every now and then of what their forces are fighting for and why.  _ 'Glory to Mankind,' _ they always say. A catchy, hopeful slogan meant to bring up android morale while humans spend their eternity hiding away in the stars, wiping their hands clean of the death still occurring in their home planet. 

And yet the androids still serve them, still fight for them and protect them. In a world wrecked by an endless war among immortal beings, the androids still remain faithful to their one goal, to their mortal creators and sponsors.

Are they blind to the truth, or was this the way they were programmed?

Do they lack the free will to break away from their own nature?

Such a pathetic existence that must be.

He can't say the same thing about the machines.

Adam sighs and turns to the next page, multitasking in his literature while he analyses the current situation. It's all in the network's memories; for a collection of beings born of their own evolution, the destruction of the obstacle known as the alien race was necessary for further progress. They were predictable, pitiful. Through countless iterations the machines have evolved, grown, learned—though they began as weapons, they have eventually gathered enough knowledge for them to become self-aware, to wonder beyond destruction and scrutinize their enemy.

The process eventually culminated in his own birth, and then Eve's. It isn't unlike the way life began on this planet billions of years ago.

The aliens they destroyed could never amount to such intelligence.

And yet humanity remains, despite their own lower intellect. Why don't the androids simply destroy the more inferior lifeforms that created them and evolve further? He's reminded of that book from the desert housing — his most prized possession — and wonders if it's just human nature to be so pitifully lucky. Destruction for the sake of preservation, murder for the sake of living. It's contradiction after contradiction. 

Is this what separates humanity from the aliens, then?

Adam closes the book and shuts his eyes. Outside he hears birds sing, the reminder of a world slowly regenerating after an eternity of strife; in their song they carry their will to live. But underneath this natural layer hides something else, a synthetic, artificial heartbeat heard by none but androids and machines. The tell-tale hum of old world data preserved in an unfiltered state, unchanging as if frozen in time. Though they're gone from this planet now, humans' digital thumbprint still remains intact. 

The evolutionary log of the human race lay open for Adam to study and understand.

* * *

A punch thrown his way, easily avoided after bending his body further from his brother. Eve uses this momentum against Adam, lifting his knee to get him in the abdomen next, and Adam jumps back again right before it makes contact, legs spread apart and an arm lowered to stop himself from sliding away too far. He lifts his head and his long hair flows over his shoulders. He looks at Eve once more, finds him hopping from foot to foot in expectation for Adam’s next move.

Instead of attacking Adam permits himself to chuckle. Eve catches it, and replying with his own laughter, rushes at his brother with all the reckless abandon of a child playing a game; he’s met with a kick directed at his head that he easily blocks off with his left arm, the black tattoo absorbing the brunt of the attack and sending Adam off balance for a blink of a second. 

Clicking his tongue and twisting his body on one foot, Adam’s quick in throwing a couple more kicks at Eve, all easily blocked with his tattooed arm. Within seconds of the barrage the black design starts to spread on his torso to cover his other arm, the protective armour working its magic and helping Eve block all his hits.

It’s a piece of hardware engineered and installed specifically to protect him, activated at will or unconsciously depending on the situation; a little gift from brother to brother, just something Eve could use as defense while out there in his own expeditions through the city. Sparring like this is meant to help him get a better understanding on how it works and how to utilize it, the combat data created up for further analysis by both of them at any time.

Eve shoves his brother back with a powerful yell and swing of his arm, the pavement under Adam’s feet damaged as he sinks his heels in to prevent falling over backwards. 

Disoriented for a second Adam almost misses it when his little brother throws a punch at him, dodging only enough to end up taking a hit on his lower rib instead of his chest. The armour hardens Eve’s skin, acts as both a weapon and a shield; the pain receptors in Adam’s skin flare up and he grunts in pain. 

Another punch, this time telegraphed by another laugh, whooshing past his face when he throws his head back just a bit. Then Eve laughs anew, using the distraction to kick at the back of Adam’s left leg and once again sending him staggering.

The physical prowess and ability Eve’s developed on his own never fails to intrigue Adam. Though born after him and with the inherited ability to battle already programmed into him, Eve’s learned to perfect that which his brother started, recontextualized it with his own style of play; the further they evolve, the more Adam becomes convinced that Eve’s strength lies in combat. And it is through sparring the younger machine learns to think critically, strategizing and incorporating every tool in his arsenal into his combat style.

Such as the armour. He’s only had it for about three days and yet already Eve is capable of using it this intuitively.

Fascinating.

Before Eve can make another move Adam lowers his stance, at once dissipating the air of battle surrounding them and getting Eve to instantly relax as well. “That’s enough for today,” Adam says, fixing his own hair and watching Eve’s tattoo go back to its normal state over his arm. “You seem to have gotten the hang of that armour of yours.”

Eve perks up immediately. He laughs, gently touching the black design with his fingers. “I really like it. Playing with it is tons of fun!”

Of course he’d see it as a toy. Adam doesn’t know if it’s better this way, but for now he lets it slide, approaching Eve and taking his arm into his hands. 

He hums, inspecting the piece of hardware. “How often have you been using it?”

“Whenever you’re busy and I’m bored, I guess. That’s why I’m always off playing with the other machines.” Eve then grins. “But playing with you is lots more fun, brother.”

“Is that so?"

“Yeah! I always look forward to spending time with you. And I hope you also have just as much fun as I am whenever we do play.”

Adam’s inspection stops abruptly when he hears Eve’s words. He blinks, looks at Eve for a moment, finds him smiling. And yet there’s a certain pleading message hidden in his expression, something that filters out of him and into their network; an anxiety to please, a hopeful transmission.  

The way Eve is looking at him so expectantly makes Adam think that he’s not even aware that he’s leaking said broadcast. There’s a strange feeling of pride tugging at Adam then, something that urges him to comply and give his brother what he wants to hear; and he’s earned it, in a way. If the records and logs in the network are anything to go by then Eve’s worked very hard to get here and demonstrate what he’s capable of.

Adam blinks again. “I do,” he says, going back to checking Eve’s arm and smiling when he hears his brother gasp. “You have improved a lot, Eve.”

“You mean it?” 

Eve sounds ecstatic, the sound tugging at the older brother again with a feeling that he has yet to understand or categorize. Adam sighs. He stores this interaction away for future examination, clears his throat to rid himself of it and focus back on checking Eve’s systems.

“Yes.”

* * *

If he and Eve are brothers, then they are, by definition, family.

In the context of human society, a family is a group of people related either by birth, some type of external relationship, or simple co-residence. Within the records of the old world Adam finds several definitions: some speak of a unit consisting of parents and a child, some of people who are descendants of a common progenitor, others of individuals gathering together to form an entirely new subdivision on their own terms.

Definitions speaking of groups that love and trust each other, an unlimited number of people gathering together to help one another through difficulty or any other task. Whether by choice or through a blood relation, family is described as a positive thing.

So then why are there just as many entries within the old world’s data speaking of family as if it were a bad thing?

Humans hating their families, cutting each other off, running away, forcing change among themselves. Members of the same familial unit expunging each other from their designated group — disowning, it’s called, the refusal to acknowledge or maintain any connection with a certain person. Just as there’s stories of celebration, love, and peace, there’s just as many of regretted births, of abuses, even murder.

And Adam, for the first time, is utterly confused.

It’s honestly a wonder that humanity didn’t destroy itself before the aliens arrived, if his previous and current studies are anything to go by. Love and hate, lust and anger, neutrality and fanaticism; humans are always too much, never too little. They reach extremes and fight among themselves when their feelings and thoughts do not match among each other, often confusing their own feelings and ideals, mixing them with other, unrelated data.

Even if they have more in common than they realize, there’s always friction. War and peace, murder and forgiveness. 

What could possibly drive such behaviour?

There’s a table and two chairs on this roof for some reason Adam can’t possibly find the logic behind, but at least he and Eve can use it as a new hub to be in every now and then. He sits at one extreme, elbows on the wooden surface and fingers steepled, and wonders. 

He wonders about humanity, about family, about love and hate, about what these things are and how one’s supposed to feel; he’s read books on both of the latter subjects, within collections of literary pieces called  _ poems.  _ Some described love, family, peace, understanding. Others described sadness, despair, pain, the end of one’s life as if it were something to be celebrated. And others were so abstract he’d been unable to parse them logically.

Adam can't quite put his finger on why this happens. What drives them to this surreal and abstract self-expression, to the need to obsess over things to the point of causing themselves and each other damage which is often irreparable?

If only he could analyse their thought processes, the same way he can analyse his own and those of his fellow machines. Yet all he has at his disposal are androids, these irrational and cheap imitations of the more enigmatic, complex humans on the moon.

Adam stops, blinks. 

The androids. 

Oh.

But of course androids would be irrational, he thinks as he smiles, if they’re still blindly serving humans instead of attempting to evolve. Two words come to mind: 2B and 9S, names he’s learned through querying the network, listening in on their conversations through remotely controlled machines stationed off wherever they go. If there’s anyone who’d know how humans functioned it would be two direct servants of theirs currently sighted running errands for their precious humans.

The two pathetic artificial beings who attacked him  _ seconds  _ after being fucking born.

Something spikes within Adam and he rises to a stand, chair thrown off, eyes wide and staring still at the wooden table. It's a hot and disgusting feeling that has him gritting his teeth and growling, body shaking as he recalls the battle in the desert. If it could even be called a battle at all, he thinks. Adam starts laughing under his breath, hands closing into two fists that he slams onto the table.

It’s an overwhelming flow of memories one right after the other. He remembers being a newborn, he remembers not understanding, he remembers pain. The satisfaction in his being when finally landing a direct hit, when watching them squirming about like pitiful bugs as he counterattacked—

Hatred, he realizes at last. This is hatred.

Adam grins.

“Brother?” Eve’s voice cuts through his train of thought, breaking his focus instantaneously. He sounds so small. Adam turns to look at Eve standing to his left, staring at his older brother with an expression Adam can’t quite interpret at the moment.

He stands upright and with his hands to his sides, fingers trembling with leftover anger and adrenaline. He closes them into fists to hide it and smiles. “Yes?”

Eve wastes no time going straight to the point: “Are you alright?”

Adam’s expression falters for a second before he catches it. How much did he see, Adam wonders for a second after mentally cursing. “Of course,” he replies, the lie flowing easily out of his smiling lips. 

But Eve’s face remains unchanging. He’s unconvinced by the lie, Adam concludes as he drops the smile and falls into silence. It instantly spreads between the two brothers as they keep on staring at one another, one searching and the other hiding, and Adam wonders what it is that Eve wants so badly that would cause him to act this unusually strange. 

What does he want? The artificial anger still flowing through his circuits pushes through Adam’s patience, irritation at his brother’s interruption growing within him. It soon proves too much to continue looking at Eve’s face, so Adam breaks eye contact first, moves to pick up the chair and put it back in its place. “Did you need something?” he voices his question while his back is turned to Eve.

He can’t see Eve’s face then, but he still hears his brother’s sharp breath. Is he surprised? “Um,” Eve begins. Adam fixes his mess and turns around, sees Eve with his eyes averted and his hands clasped together. “I...”

_ Get on with it.  _ “Well?”

Eve makes eye contact with Adam again, wringing his hands in a gesture that can only be described as uncharacteristically anxious. “Do you want to play together for a bit?” he finally blurts out. 

Adam feels his shoulders droop as if the question zapped him of his energy all at once. So he just wants to spar again. Why it took Eve so much effort to get it out Adam doesn’t know, but now he looks so resolutely at Adam that he can’t help but feel like his brother is dead-set on getting what he wants. But they’ve already sparred this morning, he’s gotten the praise he wanted, and Adam is in no mood to try again at teaching Eve basic strategy techniques. 

He’s got better things to do regarding humans than entertaining his little brother again. Adam clears his throat and closes his eyes. “Eve—”

“You always work really hard, Adam,” Eve quickly interrupts him, and Adam’s eyes widen at the sudden use of his name. Eve continues before he can comment on it: “You need some time to cool off. We could find some machines and play with them, too. It might, um,” he averts his eyes again, “it might be nice.”

There’s something about Eve’s words that reminds Adam of something else, an old word and record he’d read in a human diary stashed away within the rubble. It’s pure logic: If Adam wants to get to humans, he needs the Androids. But with all this hatred flowing into him, any plans Adam might formulate are tainted with a bias to ignore other factors. Humans often referred to releasing violent impulses and biases through recreational activities as  _ venting. _ They’ve already sparred this morning, yes, but if Adam vents, then he’ll likely stabilize again.

_ The same, and yet very, very different. _

Adam laughs, the sound dripping with genuine amusement. “Fine, then,” he says, looking at Eve smiling back, triggering a memory of the days when he’d only copied everything Adam did. “Lead the way.”

It makes sense, after all. Eve must’ve come to this conclusion on his own, way before Adam ever did.

And family’s always there for one another, as one definition had said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   * The book that Adam is reading at the beginning, and where that snippet came from, is The Art Of War by Sun Tzu
>   * The prose has changed along with Adam's mind and understanding of the world. Hopefully that bit was obvious enough asdgafha
>   * This story runs with the headcanon that Eve's tattoo was given to him by Adam as defensive hardware. If I were to describe the way I think it functions, it would be as nanomachines ~~son~~ that spread through Eve's body as an outer layer of light armour.
> 

> 
> There really isn't much else to say here, other than there's a Metal Gear reference hiding in here and I'm finally gaining traction. However, updates will have to slow down again because I'm _This Close_ to finals week and let's just say my college graduation depends very very heavily on those exams/projects.
> 
> Thanks for reading, though!

**Author's Note:**

> Shameless plug maneuver! Follow me on Twitter @ [championrevali](https://twitter.com/championrevali) [dabs]


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